


Lies And Scandal

by rain_sleet_snow



Series: Smart People [10]
Category: Primeval
Genre: F/F, Homophobia, M/M, Stalking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-04
Updated: 2013-02-04
Packaged: 2018-03-10 13:13:14
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 13,855
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3291554
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rain_sleet_snow/pseuds/rain_sleet_snow
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>CMU faces an internal threat.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is dedicated to Luka, without whom none of my writing would be as good as it is – or as grammatical. If you read and enjoy this, spare her a thought. All original characters belong to their original authors.

            The computer was broken and Caroline Steel was on the phone.

 

            “… ugh, _useless_.” Caroline thumped the space bar. “I don’t understand why they can’t just use Macs… Oh, it’s the university computers, Mum, they’re a bit crap.” She settled the phone more comfortably between her shoulder and her ear. “I’m in a computer room at CMU. No. No, my laptop is fine… I got a new one, remember… I did tell you I got a new one. It was months ago… Oh, didn’t I? It must have slipped my mind.”

 

            A technician came over, and started to perform a fix. Caroline gave him a quick smile and scooched back on the computer chair to give him more room. He wasn’t one of the IT staff she knew, a tallish, solidly-built guy with short blonde hair, a little like the head of security but craggier.

 

            “I’m just printing off something before meeting with my supervisor… yes, that’s her. Yes. Oh my God, she’s awful. I mean, she knows her stuff, but _ugh_. I wouldn’t touch her with a bargepole if I could avoid it. She’s so… prim and proper, d’you know what I mean?” Caroline giggled. “But also, _such_ a hypocrite. No, seriously. She’s having it off with a post-grad student. They live together. They’re practically _married_. And she has a problem with _my_ attitude?”

 

            The computer unfroze itself, did something complex – Caroline never claimed to understand IT – and went back to a login screen. She thanked the technician with a dazzling smile and scooted back, logging herself in. “… No, Mum. No. My virtue is perfectly safe, I promise. She just bores and annoys me. But don’t you worry.” Caroline laughed confidently and plugged in her memory stick. “I can handle her.”  

 

***

 

            Lorraine sort of wished she hadn’t got to be friends with Lester. She would have less work to do. True, her career would also look less promising and her CV would shine less, but sometimes, in the long dark frustrated nights when Sarah had curled up against her side and fallen asleep hours ago and Lorraine still couldn’t sleep for the cogs of her mind turning over and over, she thought she could live with that.

 

            She eyed the sheaf of printed-out emails on her desk.  She’d been gone all of twenty minutes to get a coffee and drop in on Sarah, and it wasn’t any smaller. She picked up the first and glanced at it – a note on the spate of broken IT kit recently and the positive habits staff could put in place to prevent their computers breaking, no problem – and then stared as a slip of paper fluttered in its wake and fell to the floor.

 

            Lorraine pushed back her computer chair and bent, scrabbling a little to reach it where it had fallen under her desk, and then finally picked it up and brought it into the light.

 

            She had to read it several times before she could make sense of it, and then she sat rigid, unmoving, eyes fixed on a single piece of paper that embodied everything she was most afraid of.

_Now the Cutter bitch is gone, you won’t be far behind, you fucking whore._

 

***

 

            “Oh for Christ’s sake,” Becker grumbled, stabbing the keys of his office computer in the vain hope of eliciting some response. He just wanted to email Lorraine and tell her the books she’d ordered had come in. Were, in fact, sitting on his desk, shiny and new and freshly labelled and entered into the library system, which had promptly gone and _crashed_.

 

            Fuck’s sake. There were at least thirty computer technicians at CMU, none of whom Becker could tell apart, so why didn’t the IT work? Dave insisted on taking a philosophical view, on the grounds that the MoD’s system was much worse, but Becker knew perfectly well that Dave liked watching him get all hot and bothered - provided that it was only the IT that was pissing him off. Something about looking cute when he was grumpy and single locks of hair falling into his face and such.

 

            “Um…”

 

            Becker looked up and cursed his luck. Jess Parker; of course. “Hi, Jess, can I help you?”

 

            “I was thinking maybe I could help you.” Jess, dressed in something eye-watering, peculiar and expensive – but, Becker acknowledged, very flatteringly cut – waved a self-deprecating hand at the computer. “I’m quite good with computers and stuff. Maybe I could, you know, fix it? Spare you calling in IT again?”

 

            Becker saw an out and grabbed for it with both hands. “Oh, would you, Jess? You know the IT around here. Piece of shit, all of it. I’ll give you some room, just need to take these up to Lorraine, she needs them urgently for that book she’s working on.” He seized the small pile of books and leapt up.

 

            Jess looked mildly disappointed, but being sweet and wholesome didn’t disagree. “Of course.”

 

            “Thanks, Jess, you’re an angel, I’ll cancel all your library fines for the next year,” Becker promised rashly, and took off like a bat out of hell, clutching Lorraine’s books.

           

            The Economics department wasn’t too from the library, and he had every hope that Jess would be occupied with his computer for at least half an hour, so he slowed his footsteps to a purposeful march almost as soon as he’d left the library. Walking any faster reminded him powerfully of his childhood, of trying to walk faster and march in step to please his father and keep up at the same time, and was also unnecessarily undignified. He was familiar with the location of Lorraine’s office – had played chess with her there in their lunch hour before, when Sarah was down in London and Dave was off beating the  dents out of the nursing course and they were both bored – so found it without thinking, knocked without thinking, and pushed the door open without thinking.

 

            What he saw, however, brought him up short at once. Lorraine was sitting as if paralysed, an ashen, yellowish note to her chestnut skin and a drawn, tight look about her eyes, staring at a slip of white paper. She didn’t move when he walked in, and there was a cup of coffee beside her, untouched and steaming gently.

 

            “Lorraine?” he said uncertainly, and then: “Lorraine,” louder and more insistently.

 

            She moved - he distinctly saw her lips twitch and her eyelids flicker - but she didn’t answer. He set the books down on her desk. “Lorraine. Look at me. It’s just me, it’s just Beck. Look at me.”

 

            She turned her head stiffly, jerkily, and when her brown eyes met his they were huge with betrayal. Becker felt a clawed hand close around his heart; he swallowed hard.

 

            “Lorraine. Can you talk to me?”

 

            Lorraine nodded. He decided not to push it.

 

            “Okay. Nod for yes, shake your head for no. Are you physically injured or sick?”

 

            Lorraine shook her head.

 

            “Thank God.  Have you been here long?”

 

            Lorraine shook her head.

 

            “Can you tell me what happened?”

 

            Lorraine’s eyes filled with pain, and one of her elegant, well-kept, deft hands pushed the slip of white paper at him. He picked it up, skim-read the single sentence on it, and recoiled.

 

            “Holy fucking _shit_.”

 

            One of Lorraine’s eyebrows flickered upwards, and she nodded, with a trace of a bitter smile. Becker re-read the sentence, looking for some identifying mark or tic of speech, and found nothing. His head jerked up as he heard Lorraine croak something. Her voice shouldn’t be rusty: it should be calm and level and London-Oxbridge.

 

            “I was scared of this,” she said, and Becker looked down at the anonymous printed characters and up at Lorraine, and was suddenly blindingly angry. God, if he could only get his hands on whoever had sent Lorraine this –

 

            “I’m going to get Dave, okay?” he said. “Dave and Sarah.” _And Ryan_ , he didn’t say aloud. Tom Ryan was alarmingly watchful, and a silent reproach to Becker for being an insufficiently devoted boyfriend to Dave and an insufficiently martial son to his father, but he knew his stuff, and if anyone could find Lorraine’s anonymous letter-writer it was him.

 

            “Not Sarah,” Lorraine said. “Not yet. I don’t want her to see me like this.”

 

            Becker stared at her, and shook his head. A few months ago, before Greg came back, he would have folded. Now he stood his ground. “Lorraine. There can’t be only one strong person in a relationship.”

 

            “That’s not what I meant,” Lorraine answered, meeting Becker’s eyes.  “I meant I don’t want her to think I’m ashamed of us.”

 

            He experienced a temporary lapse of tact. “Jesus Christ, Lorraine. You’re practically married to the woman. Don’t you think she already knows?”

 

            Lorraine almost smiled. “Do what you like,” she said, and Becker heard the words _it doesn’t matter to me_ more clearly than he thought she knew.

 

            “Just stay here,” he said. “Stay here until I come back. Hold on,” he added, and didn’t know why.

 

***

             

            Someone burst into Ryan’s office without knocking, and Ryan, who was going through the details of the student union’s campaign against date rape with their women’s officer, looked up sharply. It was Hilary Becker.

 

            Good heavens. He was almost in disarray, with actual strands of hair falling into his face.

 

            “What the fuck, Becker,” he said, without bothering with the niceties. Chloe Aarons was a solid kid; a little swearing wouldn’t disconcert her.

 

            “Trouble,” Becker said shortly, and eyeballed Chloe Aarons.

 

            “I’ll come back later, shall I?” Chloe said, scooping up her pamphlets, posters and pocket drink tester kits, and departing hence at Ryan’s nod of acquiescence.

 

            “What is it?” Ryan demanded as Chloe’s footsteps echoed down the corridor.

 

            “Lorraine’s had… a nasty note. Anonymous filth – comparing her to Helen Cutter, saying she’ll be the next to go, only in nastier language. It’s knocked her for six, Ryan. I found her in her office, practically paralysed.”

 

            Ryan got up. “I’ll go to her. Find Sarah. She’ll be in the canteen.”

 

            Becker nodded and took off at speed. Ryan thought he looked almost decisive.

 

            Ryan himself marched smartly in the direction of Lorraine Wickes’ office, mind already running on who could be sending Lorraine ‘anonymous filth’, as Becker had put it, that was vitriolic enough to shock Lorraine, a woman who wasn’t easily shaken. He was aware, thanks to Sarah, that Lorraine had issues with one of her students, but Ryan had met the enigmatic Caroline Steel and this seemed a little too unsubtle for her. Any other potential antagonists, Lorraine had kept quiet about; but Ryan found her very reserved, and there might be something she wasn’t telling him. Possibly at some point she’d let something slip to James.

 

            The door to Lorraine’s office was closed. Ryan could see her through the glass panel, standing and looking out of her small window with her back to the door. He knocked and entered.

           

            Lorraine turned, and Ryan understood at once what Becker had meant when he’d said it had knocked her for six. She’d evidently overcome some of the paralysis he had mentioned, but she looked distinctly drawn, old and tired, regardless of the air of calm indefatigability she generally exuded.

 

            He shut the door gently behind him. “Lorraine. Becker said you were having some trouble.”

 

            “He’s not wrong,” Lorraine said quietly. She swallowed hard. “It was – just a note. Anonymous. But it shocked me.”

 

            She was silent for a while. Ryan waited.

 

            “It was – something I was afraid of,” she said at last. “Afraid it would happen. I had almost persuaded myself that I was – being silly. And now it has happened, and... it’s possible nothing will come of it, but…”

 

            “Can you show me?”

 

            Lorraine picked up a slip of plain white paper lying on her desk and handed it to him. Her hands were not quite shaking.

 

            He took it from her and read the text; his lips tightened and his jaw hardened as he understood the reference to Helen Cutter which must be meant as a stab at Lorraine’s relationship with Sarah and took in the bad language. The paper itself was plain printer paper; it had been cut roughly with a pair of scissors. The text on it was Times New Roman, printed in black. There was nothing distinctive about it whatsoever.

 

            “Revolting,” he said briefly, and set it down. Lorraine had turned back to look out of the window; still facing away from him, she nodded.

 

            “You said that this played on something you were afraid of,” Ryan prompted.

 

            Lorraine nodded again.

 

            He took a seat, opposite her desk, and waited once more.

 

            “I met Sarah… almost four years ago, now. She had barely started her PhD; I had had this job for all of six months. We were introduced at a Christmas party. I didn’t know what she did, or where she worked, when we started dating. By the time I did know - it was too late for me.” She fell silent. “I don’t know if you know what I mean, Tom. You knew James long before the two of you became involved.”

 

            “I do.” There had been a point of no safe return for him and James as well, although perhaps not as quickly as Sarah and Lorraine seemed to have reached theirs. There was probably a certain amount of truth in James’ acidic observation that Sarah and Lorraine were CMU’s very own fairytale couple – and the most politically correct one the university could possibly have managed, too.

 

            “It wasn’t that I didn’t care that she was a student and I was a member of staff. I checked and double-checked the rules, both the codified ones and the unspoken ones. There is, fortunately, quite a distance between economics and Egyptology. I declared my… competing interest… formally. I did everything I could to make sure it was above-board. For Sarah’s sake, more than for my own.” Lorraine’s hands twisted on her cardigan, leaving the fabric crumpled. “But I knew people would talk. Especially because neither of us is white, and because we’re both women. I thought there was a chance it might come back to haunt us…”

 

            She went back to her desk, sat down, and looked at its cheap fake pine for a minute. Then she looked up and met Ryan’s eye for the first time. “I blame myself.”

 

            Well, clearly the first order of business was to nip _that_ misapprehension in the bud. “Bollocks, Lorraine.”

 

            She raised one eyebrow.

 

            He leant forward, grey eyes boring into hers, trying to convince her he was sincere. “Listen to me. This –” he held up the scrap of paper – “is nothing more than what Becker called it when he told me what was happening. Anonymous filth. It has _no_ bearing on your relationship with Sarah, except that someone has chosen to sling muck on those grounds. They are stupid enough to think it will stick, and they are _wrong_. Neither you nor Sarah have done anything to be ashamed of.”

 

            Lorraine pursed her lips. “Won’t it?”

 

            “Won’t it what?”

 

            “Stick.”

 

            “No,” Ryan said. “No, because I am going to find the fucker responsible for this and personally sling them into the deepest hole I can find.” He cast a cursory glance at the paper again. “And maybe Lester will want them prosecuted for hate speech and harassment.”

 

            “How do you intend to show harassment?” Lorraine said. “This is the only such letter I’ve received.”

 

            Sarah tumbled through the door like a cork from a bottle, tripped over a pot-plant that wasn’t in her way, and fell straight into Lorraine’s arms. “ _Lorraine_. I just heard -” 

 

            “I’m all right,” Lorraine said in a rather muffled voice, into Sarah’s shoulder. “It’s okay. Just – a nasty letter. It gave me a shock.”

 

            Sarah regained her footing and leant back slightly, looking into Lorraine’s face. Ryan noted the twist of her mobile mouth and the resigned look in her dark eyes, and wondered how often Sarah and Lorraine had had to worry about sideways looks, disapproving neighbours, loitering shadows on the street at night, watching them while they held hands and kissed and fell in love. “Something about us?”

 

            “Yes.” Lorraine squeezed Sarah’s thinner, longer-fingered hands in her own. “The inevitable comparisons between the esteemed Mrs Cutter and myself.”

 

            “ _What_!” Sarah yelped.

 

            “Darling, we knew this might happen…”

 

            “Yeah, but whoever thinks you’re _anything_ like that first-class _cow_ –”

 

            “Anyone who thinks I had an affair with a post-grad student.”

 

            “You didn’t, love,” Sarah said positively. “The post-grad student had an affair with you. I have never met anyone more oblivious when it comes to romantic overtures...”

 

            Hilary Becker, lurking awkwardly in the background, knocked some papers off a small table and inadvertently attracted attention to himself.

 

            “… Except maybe you, Beck, those were some epic consoling drinking-sessions-slash-agony-aunt-talks we had with Dave.”

 

            Becker blushed. Ryan made a note to thumbscrew the full story out of Dave Owen later – because there had to be a story behind that. He’d known nothing of Ditzy’s interest in the young librarian until he’d caught the pair of them at a local pub, sharing a beer, a very intense conversation about Liverpool’s chances in the Premier League, and a game of footsie under the bar. Dave had claimed that, since Becker had ‘skittish’ down to a fine art, he hadn’t wanted to push things.

 

            “But that’s beside the point,” Sarah dismissed, with a swish of her dark hair. “The affair is not past tense. It is ongoing.”

 

            Lorraine looked like she might laugh or cry. “I’m not sure how this is helping, Sarah.”

 

            Sarah stroked her cheek. “I am here of my own free will, because I love you, and for no other reason. I thought you needed reminding of that.”

 

            “That,” Lorraine said softly, “I never intend to forget.”

 

            There was a kiss. Becker and Ryan found themselves staring discreetly at the same pot-plant and hurriedly directed their gazes elsewhere.

 

            “Besides,” Sarah said, sounding much more practical, “we’re not in the same department, and you have no contact with my supervisor, who is on the record as being aware of our relationship and doesn’t think it has anything to do with my thesis.”

 

            “Always good,” Becker said, in a sort of strangulated mutter. For once, Ryan found himself in complete agreement with him.

 

            Ryan cleared his throat. “Er… ladies.”

 

            “Tom,” Lorraine said briskly, despite the fact that she was staring lovingly into Sarah’s eyes. “Yes. Thank you for your patience. Sarah and I had – er – one or two things to sort out.”

 

            They both said the last phrase at the same time.

 

            “Oh for fuck’s sake,” Becker said. “I don’t know why the two of you aren’t married already.”

 

            Ryan caught Becker’s eye and nodded fervent agreement while Lorraine and Sarah were laughing at him, or each other, or possibly both. He cleared his throat again. “In relation to your anonymous correspondent.”

 

            “Yes?” Lorraine asked, sobering up.

 

            “As matters stand, there’s little I can do but put it on file, and ask other members of staff to… have a bit of a listen out. Someone knows who did this. If anything else happens, this may become a police matter.” Ryan met Lorraine’s eyes. “You have my mobile number. If at any time you feel under threat – well, use your judgement, call the police first. But call me, too.”

 

            Lorraine nodded, a sad twist to her mouth. “Thank you, Tom.”

 

            “We appreciate it,” Sarah chimed in, leaning against Lorraine and dropping a kiss on her forehead.

 

            Ryan nodded. “Do you want me to tell James?”

 

            Lorraine shook her head. “I’ll drop him an email.”

 

            “Dave says you have to come down to his office and drink tea first,” Becker announced, putting his phone back in his pocket.

           

            “How does Dave know?” Lorraine said ominously.

 

            “Because I told him?” Becker hazarded. “Honestly, Lorraine. When I came in here, you were in a state, you looked – I don’t even know, you…” He shook his head. “I nearly went for Dave before Ryan, but his office is in the back end of nowhere, and then obviously you needed Sarah...”

 

            Sarah grinned and cuddled Lorraine. “He has a point.”

 

            Lorraine pressed her lips together. “Hm. Well.”

 

            “I’ll leave you to sort it out between yourselves,” Ryan said, and exited hastily. He was never going to understand the younger generation. Especially not Hilary Becker. But after today, he thought he had a hint of what Dave saw in the lad.

 

***

 

            “Do you think that’ll be it?” Dave said later to Lorraine, the two of them hanging back over their mugs of tea while Sarah and Becker fought it out in a no-holds-barred battle over a series of books they both seemed to have read – the diaries of a late Victorian Egyptologist. “One nasty little note?”

 

            Lorraine just looked at him. “What do you think?”

 

            Dave looked at Sarah and Becker. Sarah had evidently given up on logical argument, and was belabouring Becker with a rolled-up copy of _The Week_ in between defending her notion of the pseudonymous Egyptologist’s true identity, and the validity of the edited diaries. Becker was laughing, holding her off easily. It was a sight to make anyone smile.

 

            “I don’t think we’ll hear the last of this for a very long time,” Lorraine said softly.

 

            Dave clapped her on the shoulder. “We’ll stand by you. So will everyone at CMU. You know that?”

 

            “I know that,” Lorraine smiled, but her heart wasn’t in it. Dave could tell that much. 

 

            _Where is this going to end?_ he asked himself, and didn’t like any of the answers he got.

 


	2. Chapter 2

            There were more notes. Put in envelopes and slipped into Lorraine’s pigeonhole, left on her desk, taped to the handlebars of her bike where it was locked to the rack outside. Lorraine gave up on reading them, just handed them over to Tom Ryan, who filed them in a binder, plotted revenge, and started reviewing the CCTV footage. Swearwords blurred in Lorraine’s weary mind, and when Sarah tried to bring up the subject of the anonymous notes she just turned over in Sarah’s arms and said she was tired, so tired, could they talk about it another time? And Sarah agreed.

 

            A fortnight later, Sarah started getting notes, too; hers left in the space she had carved out for herself in the library, tucked into the inside cover of her printed-out thesis, on top of the steaming coffee cup she had abandoned for only a moment. Sarah took them to Tom as well, slapped them on his desk and said “ _Please_ can we go to the police now?”

           

            “I’ll speak to Lorraine about it tomorrow.” Tom’s jaw was tight.

 

            “But they’re being sent to me now too.”

 

            “Yes,” Tom said, and held up the note she had given him. It was all about her _bitch of a whore_ , and Sarah had nearly torn it to pieces when she’d found it. “But you notice they’re still all about Lorraine.”

 

             Sarah dropped into the chair opposite his desk. “Yes, but Lorraine’s fucking _martyr complex_ , excuse my French -  she’s got it into her head that it’s not _bad_ enough yet, somehow, as if being haunted by some kind of… of _poison pen_ every step she takes, every step _we_ take, because there are _two_ of us in this, isn’t fucking _harassment_ –”

 

            “She’s worried about you,” Tom said, without changing expression. “She thinks that, since you’re coming up for your viva, a police investigation would be too much upheaval and stress, and she already feels that she’s brought this on both of you.”

 

             Sarah made a noise like an angry elephant. “Worried about _me_! Brought this on _us_! Oh for -”

 

            “Sarah,” Tom said wearily. “Have this argument with your girlfriend. Not me.”

 

            Sarah visibly deflated. “Sorry, Tom.”

 

            “It’s fine.”

 

            “You have the patience of a saint.”

 

            “So James tells me.”

 

            There was a silence, in which Tom tidied an already immaculate desk, and Sarah stared moodily at the toes of her blue brogues.

 

            “I still think it’s Caroline Steel,” she announced to her shoes.

 

            Tom pursed his lips.

 

            “She was the only problem,” Sarah said violently. “The only thing that wasn’t quite right. And now – this.”

 

            “Sarah,” Tom said very gently. “Go home.”

 

           

            Sarah trudged reluctantly home, rehearsing, under her breath, all the things she meant to say to Lorraine. These had a lot to do with not making martyrs of themselves and enough being enough, and Sarah knew they would crumble the moment she looked into Lorraine’s huge brown eyes pleading with her to let Lorraine torment herself, and she was busy telling herself off for this in a scathing mutter when she walked straight into one of their neighbours. Mick Harper was a terrible journalist, but he hadn’t done anything to deserve that.

 

            “Sorry,” she said, and tried to excuse herself, but he grabbed her arm.

 

            “No, actually, I was hoping I’d bump into one of you.”

 

            Sarah became instantly suspicious. She barely knew Mick Harper, but surely that didn’t bode well? “Oh yes?”

 

            “I got a letter this morning,” Mick began, and the bottom dropped out of Sarah’s stomach.

 

            “Oh yes?” she repeated.

 

            “It was a horrible piece of rubbish,” Mick said. “You would have grounds for a lawsuit if only the bastard had dared to put his name to it. And I’ve been round the neighbours – everyone’s had one. Don’t worry, they’re all very, um, very indignant on your behalf, I don’t think you have anything to worry about from any of us, but… I think you ought to take this to the police.”

 

            “Have you got one of the letters?” Sarah said. She almost told Mick the whole story, but then she remembered: a journalist, and not a very scrupulous one, either. She didn’t want to know what she and Lorraine looked like, mirrored in newsprint. She suspected that it might only make things worse.

 

            He nodded, and pulled a plain envelope from his jacket pocket. It was identical to those unsealed envelopes in which rough-edged slips of paper had been concealed in Lorraine’s pigeonhole, or on Sarah’s desk, when the anonymous letter-writer had bothered with concealment at all. Mick’s address was printed on a sticker, and the postmark was from their own area.

 

            Sarah pulled the letter from its envelope. A folded sheet of plain white printer paper, black Times New Roman. The wording covered similarly familiar territory. She folded it back up and put it away again. “Thanks,” she said.

 

            He seemed to be waiting for her reaction.

 

            “I should be going now,” she said.

 

 

            Lorraine was in the bath when she got in; not unusual, since after particularly difficult days Lorraine was prone to seizing a novel and wallowing in the tub for hours on end, and there had been a lot of difficult days lately. Sarah knocked on the door, and then pushed it open gently.

 

            “Hello, love,” Lorraine said, largely hidden from her by bubble bath and Sarah’s entire whimsical collection of rubber ducks, which suggested that this wasn’t just a difficult day but an extraordinarily difficult day. “Er – I borrowed your ducks.”

 

            “What’s yours is mine,” Sarah said, sitting on the bathmat. “Quack.”

 

            Lorraine smiled. A dripping hand appeared from under the bubbles, and Sarah kissed it. “I don’t know if you saw any of the neighbours on your way up…”

 

            “I did. Mick Harper, as it happens.” Sarah leant her head against the rim of the tub. “He showed me a nasty little missive he’d been posted, and told me the neighbours had all got one.”

 

            “Huh,” Lorraine said, and sat up and reached for the soap. “I got Mrs Sackville. She told me much the same thing.”

 

            “I think,” Sarah said, “when you’re out of the bath, we probably ought to ring Tom and go down to the station. Don’t you?”

 

            “Yes. Yes, I do. This has gone too far.”

 

            “It went too far a long time ago,” Sarah said, unable to help herself.

 

            “Yes,” Lorraine admitted, shoulders drooping. “I’m sorry.”

             

            “Oh God, sweetheart – it’s _fine_. I understand. Well, I don’t. But I sort of do.” Sarah knelt up and kissed her.

 

            Lorraine dropped the soap, and rummaged around for it in the bubbles. A duck fell out of the tub, and Sarah restored it. “So you forgive me for being a bit – well, hoping this would just go away?”

 

            “Yes.” Sarah gave her a smacking kiss on the cheek. “You moron.”

 

            Lorraine gave the first genuine laugh Sarah had heard from her since the first note arrived. “I love you.”

 

            “I love you too,” Sarah said, and kept to herself the other half of her sentence: _and when we get out of this in one piece, I swear, this time I really_ will _grow a pair and ask you to marry me._

 

***

 

            “I take it,” James Lester said, stretched out on a sofa with a gin and tonic in one hand, “that that was not a happy phone call you just had.”

 

            Tom Ryan sat on his feet, precipitating an unmanly yelp and the dropping of James’ Booker Prize novel. “Well, swings and roundabouts. On the one hand, it was not a happy call. On the other hand, I’m glad it was made. And on yet another hand –”

 

            “You only have two, I should know –”

 

            “-you can’t talk, considering the chat you evidently just had with Kathy.”

 

            James Lester winced at the mention of his ex-wife, who had left him when the children were small and had very determinedly not looked back. Kathy approached everything with strength of mind and intelligence, but she had a blind spot the size of Jupiter where her ex-husband was concerned. Although she had just about accustomed herself to the idea of him with a boyfriend, it had taken six months of frosty relations which had only been broken by the three children (deliberately) absconding from their mother’s house and (less deliberately) catching a train to Scotland, precipitating a grand parental alliance. They had, apparently, meant to go to Wiltshire, to find their Aunt Alison and Uncle Theo. Tom questioned their sense of direction, but not the effectiveness of their methods.

 

            “I’ll give you that,” James said, with exquisite reluctance. “Liz appears to be cutting a swathe through her year at school. She’s quite the ladies’ woman, Kathy informs me. Whether she is repulsed or proud, I cannot tell.”

 

            “Liz needs to meet a nice girl and get cut off at the knees,” Tom said, settling himself on the sofa with his beer, which had been abandoned for the purposes of his phone call. “It might teach her a lesson. My call was nothing so troublesome.”  


            “Oh?” James absently put his feet in Tom’s lap, and wondered whether it was worth opening the rather nice bottle of wine earmarked for supper yet.

 

            “Sarah Page, to inform me that she and Lorraine have taken themselves down to the station to have a chat about harassment and hate crimes.”

 

            “The letters have got worse, then?”

 

            “Posted to their neighbours. _All_ of their neighbours.”

 

            James almost spilt his gin and tonic. “Someone who knows their address. Oh, Christ, Tom.”

 

            Tom nodded grimly.

 

            “It was bad enough as it was. How did they sound?”

 

            “I only spoke to Sarah, but – better than they have done, these last few weeks.”

 

            “Good,” James said fervently. He didn’t know if the pair knew how obvious the strain on them had been, how obvious Lorraine’s silence and the ashen look of guilt and blame on her face had been, how obvious Sarah’s fits of sharp-tongued fury and helpless defiant anger. The fault lay in their differences, James thought: Sarah wanted to stand and fight, and Lorraine wanted to turn the other cheek and wait it out.  James, who liked both of them – Sarah despite her occasional clumsiness, Cutter made her look like a ballerina in comparison, and Lorraine despite the reserve that made it hard to know her – and was not-so-secretly invested in seeing them live happily ever after since that first snowbound Christmas, had been seriously concerned.

 

            Tom, who knew about all of this even though he certainly hadn’t been told all of it, groped for his hand, found it, and squeezed it tightly. “I _will_ catch the bastard who’s doing this, James.”

 

            “Whoever it is, they make us all vulnerable,” James said, catching Tom’s grey eyes with his. “You and me. Lorraine and Sarah. Cutter and Dr Hart. Miss Brown and that zoologist she’s taken to bestowing her smiles on, what’s her name, Valerie something. Becker and Owen, however much you dislike Becker…”

 

            “He’s growing on me.”

 

            “…really? Like a fungus? Not to mention, of course, the student gay community. Which I’m told is positively thriving.” James thought of CMU’s thread on thestudentroom.co.uk _: if you’re gay, there’s no campus in the UK where you could feel safer_ , it said. At least, according to CMUSU LGBTQIA’s unwieldy posters and pamphlets, it did. “To have a stalker like this actually on campus – because they must be student or staff, I can’t see how, otherwise –”

 

            Tom nodded again, and James felt silent. “They’re sending a policeman to CMU on Monday morning,” he said. “In the meantime, the local coppers will keep a sharp eye out around Lorraine and Sarah’s building. I don’t think they will be physically harmed, James.”

 

            “You can’t know that,” James said. “And neither can I.”

 

            Tom shifted on the sofa in order to put an arm around him. James curled against him, and tried very hard not to think about all the ways this could go even more horribly wrong than it already had done.

 

***

 

            The letter came through Caroline Steel’s front door.

 

            _Looking good in that blue dress, babe_ , it started. _Would love to get to know you better_ , it finished.

 

            It was on plain white printer paper, in black point twelve Times New Roman.

 

            Caroline picked it up at ten o’clock the next morning, after ushering her latest squeeze out of the door. She thought it was junk mail until she read it, and when she read it, a shiver went down her spine.

 

            The blue dress she had worn to meet Lorraine Wickes to discuss her thesis the previous day was still lying on a chair in her bedroom, where she had left it.

 

***

 

            How did your meeting with the police go?” Stephen asked, waving a cup of coffee under Sarah’s nose.

 

            Sarah blinked, crossed her eyes and then finally refocused on the cup of coffee, whereupon she took it from him. “It’s nine o’clock on Monday morning, how do you know about that?”

 

            “Lester told Ryan who told me when I saw him out for a run this morning.”

 

            “Why were you out for a run?”

 

            “I like running.” Stephen steered her away from the coffee machine, which she had been staring at blankly, and sat her down at a table in the café. “You have that ‘I’m five days away from my PhD viva’ look on your face.”

 

            “That’s because I am.” Sarah buried her face in the cup of coffee. “Um… police meeting. Yeah, it was fine. They were helpful. There’s someone coming to the university to talk security and the investigation with Lorraine and Lester.”

 

            “Do they have any ideas?”

 

            “Well, not yet.” Sarah yawned. “I still think they should talk to Caroline.”

 

            Stephen tactfully remained silent. Sarah’s opinion on Caroline Steel was not particularly repeatable, and even Stephen wasn’t sure the vitriol was entirely justified. Caroline was clearly a wretch, but Sarah harboured serious hatred for her.

 

            “You haven’t had anything?” Sarah asked. “It’s just us?”

 

            “Just you and Lorraine, yeah.” Stephen shifted slightly. “You know if you and Lorraine felt unsafe or something in your flat, we’ve got a spare room…”

 

            Sarah’s dark eyes glittered with laughter. “Oh yeah? You’d have to clear the books out and get Nick’s palaeontological specimens off the mattress.”

 

            “No, actually, it is clean. I just repainted it.” Stephen didn’t think it necessary to mention that repainting it had involved removing several casts of diictodon skulls, ordered by size, a hundred and twenty-three books in alphabetised piles, and the first, second and fourth drafts of his own PhD thesis, complete with scribbles and alterations, from the room. “So, you know. Any time.”

 

            “I appreciate it,” Sarah said, cheeky smile softening. “Seriously.”

 

            “’S nothing.” Stephen took a gulp of his own coffee, and steeled himself for a brief discussion of feelings. He understood that friends did these things occasionally. “How are you?”

 

            “What, me?” Sarah scrubbed a hand over her face. “Um. Okay. I mean, tired, and worried about this, and about my thesis, but… what can you do?” She paused. “It’s better now Lorraine has finally acknowledged that we have a freakish stalker who likes Times New Roman. We had to have a deep conversation in the bathroom about that one, assisted by rubber ducks, but still.”

 

            Stephen stared at her. “Your flat must be a madhouse.”

 

            “Madflat,” Sarah corrected with a flash of humour. “No, it isn’t. Lorraine brings the common sense quotient right up.”

 

            Stephen smiled, and went quiet again.

 

            Sarah drained her coffee and set it down. “I should get back to work.”

 

            “Me too,” Stephen said, sipping at his.

 

            “Still wrestling with the paper?” Sarah enquired, dropping her empty cup in the bin.

 

            Stephen rolled his eyes.  The paper in question was long overdue, largely because Nick and one of the reviewers were having a serious passive-aggressive disagreement which Stephen was trying to mediate – the reviewer was providing the passive, and Nick was providing the aggressive. “What do you think?”

 

            “Have fun,” Sarah said, and walked away.

 

            Stephen tapped his fingers on the table and worried.        

 

***

 

            The policeman was very ginger. He was, theoretically speaking, smartly dressed in a suit, but somehow managed to make a normal suit and tie look scruffy, and the hands jammed into his pockets and faint quirk of a grin suggested a personality that would drive Lester bats. Ryan’s inner drill sergeant was dying to straighten him out.

 

            He was calm and professional when he shook hands and introduced himself as Detective Sergeant Danny Quinn, though, and Ryan decided that he’d do.

 

            “Tom Ryan,” he said in response. “Head of security. Dr Wickes and Mr Lester are in Mr Lester’s office.”

 

            He led Quinn through the corridors of CMU towards Lester’s office, and walked smack into Jenny Lewis before they’d got halfway there. Jenny was talking nineteen-to-the-dozen to Niall Richards, who seemed to be listening appreciatively to her and was even half-smiling, which was probably why she almost crashed straight into Detective Sergeant Quinn and had to dodge quickly, with a quick, charming smile for Quinn. Animated, interested and with her hair up in a simpler style than usual, she looked extremely pretty, and Ryan was not surprised that Quinn – in accepting her apology – managed to give her an appreciative once-over.

 

            “This is Detective Sergeant Quinn, Jenny,” he said, before the instant narrowing of Niall’s eyes and tightening of his jaw could turn into something concrete. “He’s investigating Lorraine and Sarah’s anonymous correspondent. Quinn, this is Miss Lewis; she sorts out our PR.”

 

            “Pleased to meet you, Miss Lewis,” Quinn said cheerfully, shaking hands.

 

            “Good to meet you too,” Jenny said, smiling back at him. “I hope you can find whoever it is; it’s doing a number on all our nerves.”

 

            Ryan noticed with foreboding that Niall had begun to resemble a particularly grumpy storm-cloud, and cleared his throat. “We should be getting along to the meeting…”

 

            “Of course,” Quinn said. “Which way again?”

 

            “Through here,” Ryan said, ushering Quinn speedily out of Niall and Jenny’s orbit. He caught a glimpse of Niall ineptly covering his displeasure as Jenny turned back to him, and hoped like hell that Niall hadn’t just jeopardised relations with the only woman in a three-mile radius who might conceivably be able to handle him.

 

            “So,” Quinn said, when Ryan was almost, but not quite, sure that they were out of earshot, “Miss Lewis. Single, is she? Or with that jealous bloke she was talking to?”

 

            Ryan gave him a practised stare of complete and total disbelief that usually froze even the most forward students cold, but which slid right off Quinn’s cheeky chappy persona. “I don’t know.”

 

            “Really? You strike me as the kind of person who knows everything that goes on around here.”

 

            Ryan reflected that Quinn, despite his raffish exterior, had very sharp eyes. “Not even half,” he said evenly in return. “If I did, I’d know who was responsible for this, and I’d have slung them out on their ear.”

 

            “I bet you would. Nasty business.”

 

            They bypassed Lester’s PA, and Ryan knocked at Lester’s door.

 

            “Come in!” Lester called, and Ryan pushed the door open and ushered Quinn through it. Much though Ryan was sure Lester would deny it later, he and Lorraine appeared to have been having some kind of heart to heart; Lorraine had her armchair drawn up close to Lester’s desk and was holding a crumpled tissue in one hand, her eyes slightly reddened.

 

            Both Lorraine and Lester got up as Ryan and Quinn entered the room, and there was a volley of introductions and shaking hands before they all sat down and got down to business, assisted by a tray of tea, coffee and biscuits provided by Lester’s PA.

 

            “I got the first note three weeks ago,” Lorraine began. She looked uncharacteristically nervous, her eyes fixed on her cup of coffee and an untouched biscuit balanced on her saucer. “It… called me rude names, told me that I would be fired next, and compared me to Helen Cutter, who… is a woman with whom we’ve had our disagreements.”

 

            “She was a former member of staff,” Lester put in. “The wretched woman slept with her students and coerced them into keeping quiet for years, and came back recently as an external examiner to make trouble for her ex-husband, who still works here.”

 

            “Does she have contacts at CMU?” Quinn enquired. The insolent demeanour had fallen from him as he listened to Lorraine; he was politely concentrating on her story, and now contrived to look approachable instead of scruffy.

 

            Lorraine shook her head. “Not to my knowledge. She endeared herself to exactly nobody when she was last here.”

 

            “I’ve seen her around with Oliver Leek, who does work here,” Lester contradicted her. “Out for a meal.”

 

            Quinn made a note in his notebook. “Did the comparison of you to Helen Cutter have some particular meaning, Dr Wickes?”

 

            “My partner is a PhD student in a different department,” Lorraine said quietly. “I’m a lecturer. In Economics.”

 

            “I see,” Quinn said, and made another note. “But obviously, unlike the erstwhile Mrs Cutter, your relationship is entirely above-board.”

 

            Lorraine nodded, and looked at her hands.

 

            “Quite the insult, that comparison,” Quinn remarked. “Any ideas who might have addressed it to you?”

 

            Lorraine shook her head, and replied rather haltingly. “One of my graduate students, Caroline Steel, tends to – is not always… She insinuates things. Over the past couple of years she’s made it quite clear that she doesn’t really approve of my relationship with Sarah. But this is not like her. It’s too –”

 

            After a moment, Quinn prompted her. “Too…”

 

            “Unsubtle,” Lorraine finished, quietly.

 

            Ryan caught Lester’s eye. Lester gave him a look that spoke volumes, then refocused his attention on Lorraine and Quinn.

 

            “So that was the first note,” Quinn said. “What about the others? I understood from the statement you gave that there have been several.”

 

            “Fifteen addressed to me,” Lorraine said. “A further nine addressed to Sarah. Most of them arrived here, at CMU, but last Friday our neighbours received a letter discussing us in… similar abusive terms. At which point we went down to the station and spoke to your colleagues.”

 

            Quinn nodded, taking further notes. “Has anything happened since then?”

 

            Lorraine shook her head mutely.

 

            “Is there anyone who might have some form of a grievance against you? A professional disagreement, maybe?”

 

            Lorraine shook her head again, seeming honestly baffled. “I don’t… I’m not…”

 

            “Dr Wickes is the single most inoffensive woman I have ever met,” Lester corroborated.

 

            Lorraine gave him an odd look. “Was that a compliment?”

 

            “I know of no-one who has objected to you on _any_ grounds. Apart from Ramsbottom in Theology, who is a law unto himself.”

 

            “A homophobic law unto himself,” Lorraine said a little bitterly. “But even that doesn’t make sense. Sarah and I aren’t – figureheads, or anything. We aren’t especially visible. Every now and then I have a little chat with a tortured fresher who doesn’t quite think she’s straight any more, because she’s heard about me and Sarah. But Nick and Stephen – that’s Nick Cutter and Stephen Hart – have been here and out longer than I have, and James and Tom are more prominent. If someone were to attack a gay couple to make a point, they wouldn’t choose me and Sarah!”

 

            Quinn scribbled down some things. “It’s something we need to look at, sadly. Is Sarah aware of anyone who might have chosen to attack her through you?”

 

            Lorraine smiled involuntarily. “People either adore Sarah or they think she’s harmlessly mad. She’s very charming. She does have a strained relationship with her family, but I’ve barely met them, and to the best of my knowledge, they don’t know where we live. I think they would be hard pressed to remember what Sarah does. Sarah herself – well, I’m sure you’re going to ask her, but she’s convinced it’s Caroline Steel. She gets very protective of me, and Caroline has been – yes, to be fair, Caroline has been pretty objectionable. But I still think this is too unsubtle for her.”

 

            Quinn nodded. “Have you noticed anything odd around your home or office? Anyone hanging around who usually doesn’t? Is there anyone in particularly who would have had an opportunity to get into your office?”  


            “My office isn’t usually locked,” Lorraine said. “I generally lock it when I leave at night, but not otherwise. Anyone could have popped in – Caroline again, any of the cleaners, other students, the IT people – the computers have been rubbish over the last few weeks, mine’s always broken.” 

 

            “And your address. Is that common knowledge?”

 

            “Not particularly. We’re in the phone-book, if that’s what you mean.” Lorraine shifted in her seat. “I haven’t spotted anything odd at home, since you ask. There hasn’t been anyone around that I don’t know, or at least recognise by sight. Sarah is more observant than I am, she might have seen something. I can be a little – focussed, when I’ve been working hard.”

 

            Quinn capped his pen. “Okay. I think that’s everything for the moment. I’ll be talking to Miss Page shortly. I think I ought to have a word with your Caroline Steel, too, and Mr Ryan, a look at the CCTV footage and a few words with the cleaning staff and IT staff who usually cover the area Dr. Wickes’ office is in wouldn’t go out of place.”

 

            “In that case,” Lorraine said, moving to get up. “My office hours have just started, and if I haven’t got a queue of students lurking outside my door, I don’t know undergrads and their struggles with rational actor theory at all. I did promise to explain it to anyone who was confused.”             

 

            “Of course,” Lester said.

 

            Lorraine thanked Quinn, gave him her number and address, smiled at Ryan and left. Lester’s eyes flickered after her as she went, and Ryan wondered for a distant moment if anyone but him could see the anxiety in Lester’s face. On a purely impersonal level, people would be watching to see how they resolved this. From a more human point of view, Lorraine and Sarah were genuinely lovely, and Ryan knew how angry it made Lester to see them hurt; angry and worried about the implications for his own relationship.

 

            Then he realised that Quinn was discussing the possibility of a room to chat with the people he wanted to talk to, and hurriedly tuned back into the conversation.


	3. Chapter 3

            “Any progress on the anonymous letters thing?” Becker asked, pulling her chair out for her like the gentleman his mother had clearly raised him to be.

 

            Sarah sat down with a nod of thanks and picked up the pub menu. Becker had been distinctly solicitous since discovering Lorraine frozen with shock in her office, and Sarah felt she’d got to know more about him in the last few weeks than she had in the previous year or two. One of the things he’d taken to doing was escorting her out of CMU for lunch, which Sarah was profoundly grateful for; she wasn’t sure she would have remembered to eat over the last couple of days if he hadn’t. “I had an interview with the detective this morning.”

 

            “Go well?”

 

            “Yeah.” The waitress came over, and Sarah ordered a Coke and an odd ciabatta interpretation of a BLT. “He was nice. Quite charming, calm, friendly. But sharp as a box of tacks. He said he thought he had some leads.”

 

            “Word is he was flirting with Jenny Lewis…”

 

            Sarah’s head snapped up. Becker was grinning, and she stared incredulously at him. “You’re kidding me! With Niall Richards following her around like a lost, adoring, psychotic puppy?”

 

            “He’s all right, if you don’t take the stormy expressions too seriously. That’s just his resting face.”

 

            “You’re almost as bad as Lorraine. She thinks he’s sweet and bosses him around like he’s one of her little brothers, and the really hilarious thing is he just - goes and does what she tells him to.” There was a moisture ring on the table. Sarah drew patterns in it idly. “Why do you like him?”

 

            “I may have seen his better side. He gets on well with Dave and he plays a good game of rugby.”

 

            Sarah kept her feelings on the subject of rugby to herself.  “So Detective Sergeant Quinn took a shine to Jenny?”

 

            “Yeah.” Becker started to laugh. “I saw Niall in the library only an hour or two ago. He looked so bloody cross all the students were avoiding him like the _plague_ , it was hilarious. There was a bunch of them whining to me about the medics’ textbook availability problems and Niall wanted to get past – they parted like the Red Sea.”

 

            Sarah grinned. “Well, this is trouble in the making.”

 

            “I’m sure Jenny can handle it,” Becker said.

 

            Sarah nodded. “She did a brilliant hatchet job on Helen Cutter.”

 

            Becker nodded fervently, presumably enjoying the artistry in hindsight. At the time, none of them had been laughing. “When’s the viva, by the way?”

 

            “Tomorrow,” Sarah said, feeling the flat nervousness in her own voice. “Ten a.m. There’s nothing I can do to change it now, my supervisor’s pleased, everything I _can_ ensure I _have_ ensured, but... I’m worried.”

 

            “I don’t understand how you could not be,” Becker said bluntly, taking his own order of a bottle of sparkling water and a cheese and ham toastie from the waitress. “It’s a big deal.”

 

            “Yeah,” Sarah said quietly, and watched as Becker set his plate down, then fished a box of something closely resembling plasters out of his pocket and slapped one onto his wrist. “What’s that?”

 

            “Nothing,” Becker said, but there was a slight, tell-tale flush across his cheeks.

 

            “Beck…”

 

            Becker heaved a sigh and showed her the box. “Nicorette. Nicotine patches.”

 

            “Are you quitting?” Sarah asked. She knew Becker smoked; he had a habit of ducking out of social gatherings under the guise of lighting up outside.

 

            “Dave wants me to,” Becker said.

 

            “Aww,” Sarah said, entirely involuntarily.

 

            “And, you know, it would be good for me.” The blush deepened. “But really, mostly because Dave wants me to.”

 

            “Are you serious about him, then?” Sarah demanded delightedly, and immediately cursed herself for putting her foot in it. She knew from Dave how skittish Becker was, how nervous about relationships he could be, and considering how disastrous Becker’s last serious relationship had been Sarah couldn’t blame him. Asking Becker if he was serious about Dave was a loaded question.

             

            Becker fidgeted for a second, but then met Sarah’s eyes clearly. “Yes.”

 

            A smile broke out on his face as he spoke, and Sarah felt her lips twitch into an answering smile. “Does he know?”

 

            “Er – I think he does.” Becker sounded distinctly cautious.

 

            “Maybe you should, you know, tell him.”

 

            Becker appeared to mull this over. “Yeah, maybe I should. The day you get off your arse and buy Lorraine an engagement ring…”

 

            Sarah nearly choked on her sandwich.

 

***

 

             Lorraine got home before Sarah again, and found the phone ringing. Without thinking, she reached out and grabbed it, dropping her handbag on a sofa and putting the kettle on as she listened in increasing puzzlement. There was no sound.

 

            “Hello?” she said. “Hello?”

 

            No response. She put the phone down, and poured out her cup of tea; and after a second she went for the phone and tried to dial the previous number.

 

            _Number withheld_ , the screen said.

 

***

 

            Sarah got home to find the phone ringing and Lorraine giving it the kind of stare she usually reserved for people who had managed to get all the way to their final dissertation without learning to spell ‘separate’ as the kettle boiled and a casserole of something bubbled on the hob. Sarah took a moment to appreciate that, going by the ingredients strewn around the kitchen, Lorraine was cooking her favourite dish, and then put down her bag and enquired about the phone.

 

            “We’re getting silent calls,” Lorraine said. If a voice could glower, her voice would have been glowering.

 

            “Cold-callers?” Sarah said hopefully.

 

            “Not as far as I can tell. They’re arriving at irregular intervals.” Lorraine lifted the lid off the casserole and stirred the coq au vin. “Approximately every ten minutes, but not quite. Number withheld.” She tasted the food and added a touch of pepper. “I’ve called Detective Sergeant Quinn.”

 

            “Good call,” Sarah said, and knelt down, hunting for the phone cord. She found it and pulled it out of the wall.

 

            “Also a good call,” Lorraine said, apparently divining Sarah’s activities from the noise of the phone falling off the small side-table it was on and Sarah scrabbling to catch it and dinging her head on the wall. “I don’t think anyone will phone us tonight.”

 

            “No.” Sarah sat up, restored the phone, and climbed back to her feet.

 

            “How was your get-together?”

 

            “Fine,” Sarah said. The post-grad students’ union wasn’t terribly active in a political sense, although there had been an outpouring of highly organised fury when the coffee machine in the post-grad students’ common room had gone missing for a week last term. It did, however, run a thriving pub night, which largely consisted of slightly tipsy students bemoaning their theses, their supervisors, their landlords, their families, their unpaid bills and their lives at large. Caroline Steel had never attended. “I got a lot of good-luck wishes.”

 

            “Tom asked me to wish you good luck too,” Lorraine said, and poured herself a glass of wine. “And he said James sent his best wishes too.”

 

            “You’re kidding,” Sarah said, and when Lorraine turned to her with raised eyebrows and the wine-bottle, added: “Just half a glass.”

 

            Lorraine poured the requested half a glass and brought it over to her; Sarah met her halfway and kissed her, her fingers curling around the glass stem before Lorraine’s could loosen on it and her free hand falling to rest on Lorraine’s hip. “Dinner will be ready in ten,” Lorraine murmured into the kiss, and Sarah took a sip of the wine and stooped to put it down on the side table, before straightening to wrap her arms properly around Lorraine and kiss her again.

 

            “So not enough time for me to get you into bed.”

 

            “No,” Lorraine said definitely, thumbs stroking over the nape of Sarah’s neck.

 

            “We have a kitchen island…” Sarah said hopefully. She lived to expand Lorraine’s horizons, really. The woman had never quite grown out of being a shy, strait-laced and excessively hard-working pattern-card of a bluestocking, and it showed sometimes.

 

            “We have a _food preparation space_ , Sarah,” Lorraine said sternly, as Sarah had known she would, and then hesitated, as Sarah had not known she would. “Ask again tomorrow, when you’ve done brilliantly on your viva. And then maybe.”

 

            “Oh my God,” Sarah said, slightly overwhelmed. “I love you, babe.”

 

            “That’s a completely logical follow-on to my statement,” Lorraine said, getting the look on her face that Sarah liked to refer to as her Spock expression, the one that only turned up when Lorraine was mortally embarrassed and hiding behind pretended academic detachment.

 

            “Yes,” Sarah said, knowing that she was beaming adoringly down at Lorraine and completely unable to do a thing about it. “Yes, it is.”

 

***

 

            The unsealed envelope lay on Caroline Steel’s desk. She didn’t want to touch it; she already knew what it would contain. A page, two pages maybe, of neat Times New Roman point twelve. A letter from her secret admirer.

 

            Caroline almost snorted. ‘Stalker’ would be a more accurate term.

 

            She looked up and away from the letter, and glanced around the room. It was late, and CMU was mostly dark now, the vast majority of people having left long ago. The post-grad students’ cubbyholes were tucked into obscure corners, and Caroline’s was in an extremely obscure corner, and the room was half-empty to boot; most of the fake pine desks had no occupants. It was desperately quiet. The soft hiss of falling rain and treacle-thick darkness outside didn’t help the creepy atmosphere; anything could be hiding in that, Caroline thought with a shudder.

 

            She picked up the envelope and stuffed it unceremoniously into her coat pocket, then left the room hastily and turned into the darkened corridor, hurrying down it and towards the exit. A light flickered on at the end of the corridor and a silhouette appeared, and Caroline jumped out of her skin, failing to suppress a startled squeak.

 

            “All right, miss?” said the silhouette, morphing into one of the IT technicians. Caroline had definitely seen him around before, a tall solid blond guy, a bit craggy, but she couldn’t remember his name.

 

            She managed a bright, fake smile. “Oh, yeah. Spooky in here at night, isn’t it?”

 

            “Yeah,” he said, cracking a smile. “Sorry I startled you.”

 

            “It’s nothing,” Caroline said, keeping up her smile. “Night!”

 

            She brushed past him and hurried out into the darkness, putting up her umbrella and heading for the bus stop as fast as she could. She looked backwards several times to see if she was being followed without quite knowing why, except for the fact that she hadn’t liked the intent look on that man’s face.

 

            Leaning against one of the poles in the bus, Caroline thought that she could have called any one of her friends, with or without benefits, to take her home. But she’d rather be alone right now. She’d rather take care of herself. She’d always been safest that way.

 

            The letter was burning a hole in her pocket. She took it out as soon as she was in her own flat with all the doors and windows locked and all the lights on and the kettle boiling and the radio humming in the background, when she felt safer and less frightened.

 

            _Hi sweetheart_ , it began. She felt like she might be sick, and skimmed the rest of it for any actual identifying information, anything that might help her know who was doing this.

_… going to do something to help you…_

_… you’re like an angel fallen to earth. Nobody’s good enough for you but I could try to be…_

_…I’m going to look after you, babe, I promise…_

_…nobody’s ever going to stand in your way again…_

           

            Caroline came back to herself retching over her sink, the letter abandoned on the floor where it had fallen. She caught sight of her reflection in the glass door of the oven and caught her breath; she looked terrified and helpless, and she wasn’t accustomed to thinking of herself as either of those things.

 

            She didn’t sleep a wink that night.

 

***

 

            Lorraine squeezed Sarah’s hand tightly, gave her one more kiss for luck, and left Sarah waiting in the corridor with her notes. She knew Sarah was likely to pass – her work was excellent, and she was good at presentation – but she felt nervous on her behalf, and concerned that all the drama surrounding their anonymous correspondent might affect her viva.

 

            She let herself in to her office and flicked on the lights and switched on her computer. It had been very sulky lately, refusing to boot up, malfunctioning at unpredictable intervals and freezing regularly. She’d put several complaints into the IT department.

 

            It was hard to concentrate on her work. She checked her emails, toyed with her phone, looking for a distraction. Maybe DS Quinn would have made a breakthrough somehow, miraculously, at nine-thirty in the morning. Maybe time would jump forwards, and Sarah’s presentation would be finished, the suspense over.

 

            At ten o’clock, having answered two emails, rebooted her computer twice and poked desultorily at her pile of marking, Lorraine let out a frustrated sigh, wrote a rude note to the IT department and went to make herself a cup of coffee. The brown sludge dispensed by the cafeteria didn’t help, and neither did the brisk walk to the canteen; Lorraine cursed herself and went to check her pigeonhole to see if there was any more marking, or some post, preferably of the non-anonymous kind. There wasn’t, but she was gratified, when she returned to her desk, to find an IT technician bent over her computer fixing it. A tall blond man she’d seen around before, but whose name she couldn’t remember.

 

            “Should work now, Dr Wickes,” he said, slapping the top of the tower for emphasis. “Let us know if you have any more trouble.”

 

            “Thank you,” Lorraine said, gratified and feeling guilty for being so rude to the technicians. They did a difficult job, and Lorraine – who had dabbled in coding at one point and was the go-to child when her parents ran into technological difficulties – felt as if she’d taken for granted people she normally liked and made a point of befriending. She at least ought to know this man’s name. “What’s your name?”

 

            “Mike,” the technician said.

 

            “Well, thanks, Mike. I really appreciate it.”

 

            He nodded a little shortly and left. Lorraine sat down at her desk and took a recklessly large gulp of her coffee, which was, perhaps, a little cold for drinking – and also tasted oddly sweet. She frowned at the cup, wondering if one of the catering ladies had topped up the black coffee with a touch of mocha again because there wasn’t quite enough plain coffee left, but shrugged and kept drinking.

 

            Her computer was working perfectly.

 

 

***

 

            Caroline Steel was not looking forward to her interview with DS Quinn. She glanced at the clock, realised that he’d run over with his previous interview by ten minutes, and frowned, shifting from foot to foot. It was bad enough that she was suspected of some kind of hate-mail campaign against her supervisor, who was irritating and calm and far too fucking superior for a member of staff sleeping with a post-grad, and worse that she actually had something to show him, although she had a secret admirer rather than a creepy homophobe stalking her. Did he really have to be rude along with it?

 

            Half-past eleven in the morning and the plain typed letter was burning a hole in her handbag the same way it had burnt a hole in her coat pocket last night. She curled her fingers tightly around the leather strap and waited, hoping the strain didn’t show on her face as badly as her sleepless night had when she’d done her make-up this morning.

 

            The fake-pine door into the conference room opened, and DS Quinn ushered a cleaning lady out with flamboyant courtesy and smiled at her when she blushed. Caroline couldn’t stop herself rolling her eyes; the cleaning lady, one of Dot’s less formidable minions, didn’t notice, but DS Quinn did. He gave her a very shrewd look from surprisingly narrow blue eyes.

 

            “Miss Steel, isn’t it?” he said, in a way that reminded her that her name sounded like a comic book character’s and told her he wasn’t impressed. “Why don’t you come in and take a seat? I just have a few questions to ask. Sorry about the delay.”

 

            The cleaning lady looked like she was about to tell Caroline that he was ever so nice. Caroline ignored her, went into the conference room, and sat down in the identikit red-upholstered fake-pine chair that had clearly come in a set with the fake-pine door and the fake-pine table. God, CMU was cheap.

 

            “Detective Sergeant. Pleased to meet you at last.”

 

            “Glad to hear it. So few people are.” He took a seat himself, with a little getting-down-to-business sigh, and briskly shuffled some papers. “So. You are Caroline Steel, PhD candidate in Economics. Tell me about your work.”

 

            Caroline licked her lips and spoke carefully. “I did my undergraduate degree in Economics at Exeter University, spent two years in investment banking and got out just before the credit crunch due to a dislike for the work and personal dissatisfaction with my working environment. I then took an MSc in Economics and Development at Bath University, and I’m now two years into a PhD comparing the impact of microfinance initiatives on women’s involvement in the formal and informal economy in Bangladesh, Tanzania and Colombia. My supervisor is Lorraine Wickes.”

 

            “Interesting.”

 

            He sounded genuinely interested. Caroline knew he was pretending, and hated him for it. “I think so.”

 

            “Your supervisor. Do you get on with her?”

 

            “We’re not the closest of friends,” Caroline said, and instantly knew her tone had been too sharp. He looked mild and meek and as if he hadn’t noticed. “She’s not my kind of person. But she’s a good supervisor and a revoltingly good person – well, mostly.”

 

            “Mostly?”

 

            “I don’t approve of staff sleeping with students.” Caroline had been brought up to be scrupulously careful around police officers; she left it at that.

 

            “It’s not the fact that she’s a lesbian that’s the problem?”

 

            Caroline rolled her eyes. “I’m bisexual myself. I don’t make a practice of homophobic behaviour - it would be hypocrisy.”

 

            “Are you out?”

 

            “That’s a personal question.”

 

            “I’m a police officer; I ask personal questions.”

 

            “This one is irrelevant.”

 

            “Your answer might help me clarify why Miss Page seems to think you have some kind of homophobic vendetta against her and her partner.”

 

            “ _Sarah_?” Caroline gasped, starting involuntarily. She quite liked Sarah, apart from her shitty taste in women; in another lifetime they might have got on, but she’d probably burnt her boats by being too rude about Lorraine where Sarah could hear her before she’d known they were a couple. “ _What_?”

 

            DS Quinn said nothing, just watched her.

 

            Caroline composed herself. “I have no problem with Sarah Page, or with her sexual orientation. I have a problem with her relationship with a staff member, but I’m inclined to blame the staff member for that. I’m not openly bi; I have enough trouble with people calling me a greedy slut as it is.”

 

            DS Quinn raised his eyebrows. “So you would take offence if you knew that things like these were being said about her and her partner.” He picked up a sheet of paper and read out, in the same cheery, impartial voice with which he’d conducted most of his questioning, a string of unspeakable slurs.

 

            Caroline’s jaw dropped.

 

            DS Quinn laid down his piece of paper. “Would you like to vocalise the expression on your face? For the record?”

 

            “That is _disgusting_ ,” Caroline said. “I didn’t know…” Her voice trailed off.

 

            “Letters containing these phrases were sent anonymously to both Sarah and Lorraine on thirty-two occasions. They were also posted to them at home. Their neighbours received a libellous letter, also anonymous, discussing their relationship. They have also received regular silent calls to their landline.”

 

            Caroline knew she’d gone pale. “I had no idea.  I thought they were just getting the odd nasty letter. I swear, I had no idea it was that bad – Dr. Wickes is always calm no matter what, and she wouldn’t tell me anything if she wasn’t calm. Like I told you, we don’t get on. And Sarah and I haven’t spoken for months.”

 

            “I see.” DS Quinn jotted down some notes.

 

            Caroline gathered her courage in both hands and reached for her handbag. “There’s something I need to tell you. I don’t know if it’s related, but…”

 

            “But?” DS Quinn repeated, looking up sharply.

 

            “I’ve been getting anonymous letters too. Just not - filth.” Caroline took the envelope out of her handbag and pushed it across the table to DS Quinn. “Over the last… month or so?” She smiled humourlessly. “I have a _secret admirer_. Whoever he is, he writes to me every three or four days, and there are always… details. Things that make me think that whoever he is, he sees me a lot. The colour of the dress I was wearing, or if I was in a bad mood or not.”

 

            DS Quinn opened the envelope, but his eyes were on her, serious and steady and, for the first time, really listening.

 

            Caroline swallowed. “This one talks about – doing something to help me, fixing my problems. Saying that nobody would stand in my way. I got it last night. I… couldn’t sleep. I thought I could handle it, people have given me trouble before and I’ve been fine, but I can’t handle this.”

 

            DS Quinn nodded and skimmed the letter. His eyes went sharp, and Caroline was full of a sudden, horrible fear, like ice water filling her stomach, slowly freezing.

 

            “Do you know where Dr Wickes’ office is?” she asked. “I could show you.”

 

            DS Quinn reached out one long arm and grabbed a cordless phone, dialling a number. “I have her office phone number.”

 

            Caroline waited and watched while the silence stretched on and expressions flitted across his weathered, formerly blandly cheeky face. “No answer,” he said, and slammed the phone down. “Stay here until I come back.”

 

            He jogged briskly out of the room.


	4. Chapter 4

            Lorraine found herself blinking sleepily, and rubbed her eyes, squinting hard to try to understand the words in front of her. They swam in and out of focus, and made no sense even when she could persuade them to hold steady before her eyes.

 

            Her head was _pounding,_ and her stomach ached horribly. She dropped her head into her hands and rubbed her temples.

 

            “Um, Dr Wickes,” said a very familiar voice, attached to a very familiar shock of red hair.

 

            Lorraine felt deeply weary. “Jess, not now.”

 

            “I just wanted to ask –”

 

            “ _Not_ _now_. I’m busy. What time is it?”

 

            Jess hesitated. “About eleven. Are you okay?”

 

            “No,” Lorraine said truthfully. “Excuse me, Jess, I’ll… whatever your problem is, I’ll deal with it later.”

 

            She got up and walked out of her office, then took a brisk detour into the ladies’ loos, hoping she didn’t look too hurried or as sick as she felt. Food poisoning? she wondered, heading for the first available loo. Oh, hell, what if Sarah was sick? But no: she was always a careful cook and she knew yesterday’s supper had been good. She was sure of it. And if it were food poisoning, she’d be throwing up too by now.

 

            When she thought it was safe, at least for the moment, she got up, flushed the loo with decision and washed her hands very thoroughly before heading towards Dave Owen’s office as fast as she could. He looked up and immediately got to his feet when she knocked on his door; feeling weak, she hung onto the doorframe.

 

            “I feel really sick,” she said, and promptly threw up.

 

***

 

            “Lorraine? Lorraine! Oh, pick up your bloody phone,” Sarah said to her mobile and the electronic ringing of Lorraine’s phone, hurrying towards Lorraine’s office. She knew Lorraine would want to know, had wanted her to be there when they told her if she’d got her doctorate or not, but it hadn’t been possible and this was the next best thing. It wasn’t as if Lorraine wasn’t just around the corner anyway.

 

            Sarah skidded round the corner in her sensible, professional heels and crashed straight into Stephen Hart.

 

            “Sarah! Thank God.” He grabbed her by both arms and she stared up at him.

 

            “What’s wrong?” she said, completely confused. “Are you all right? Is Helen bothering you?”

 

            “No. Are you all right? Feeling sick, dizzy, headaches…?”

 

            “I’m completely fine. I’m a doctor!” She laughed, and bounced on her toes. “I did it, Stephen!”

 

            He smiled, but distractedly. “Congratulations. How was Lorraine this morning?”

 

            The laugh fell off Sarah’s face. “Like normal. The way she always is. A bit nervous for me, maybe, but…” She peered into Stephen’s face, determined to read whatever was the matter off it. “Why? Is she okay?” She felt a hot spike of dread. “Is she hurt?”

 

            “She’s in hospital under police guard. She’s safe, but she’s sick.” Stephen looked tormented, and took a deep, careful breath. “Sarah, Dave thinks she’s been poisoned.”

 

            “Oh my _God_!” Sarah shrieked, loud enough to make Stephen wince. “Oh my God, where is she, is she going to be okay, Stephen, _where is_ _she_ –”

 

            “In hospital,” Stephen said, looking slightly overwhelmed. “The ambulance left half an hour ago. None of us could raise you and Lorraine would have killed us if we’d pulled you out of your viva, but Dave’s gone with her, and I’m going to take you to the hospital.”

 

            “Yes, good, let’s go, now,” Sarah babbled, disengaged herself from Stephen’s grip and seized his shirt, towing him towards the exit. “Tell me what happened.”

 

            “We’re not sure.” Stephen pushed open the big glass door at the entrance and they jogged down the wide steps, past two police patrol cars drawn up by the entrance. Students in small, whispering huddles that Sarah hadn’t even noticed when she left that viva room watched them go as Stephen opened the Evolutionary Zoology department jeep’s immense door and hopped in after Sarah. “One of her students came forward when the ambulance turned up, to say she saw Lorraine at about eleven, looking sick and unusually short-tempered. IT says she put in a complaint about the state of her computer at ten o’clock and a technician went to fix it a bit later, and one of the cafeteria staff sold her a plain black coffee at about the same time.” He pulled out of the car park. “DS Quinn called in his mates. Him and Ryan have gone after the technician.”

 

             “But what happened to _Lorraine_?” Sarah felt distantly as if she should encourage Stephen; he rarely spoke this many words in a row. But his speech was a bit lacking when it came to the details of her partner’s welfare, and Sarah didn’t care about anyone else.

 

            “Stumbled into Dave’s office saying she felt sick and threw up everywhere. Her breath smelled like garlic and she said she hadn’t eaten any today. Dave smelt a rat and rang an ambulance.”

 

            “Fuck,” Sarah said breathlessly. “Fuck. Is she going to be okay?”

 

            “Ask the doctors,” Stephen said, but Sarah caught his quick worried glance, and almost burst into tears.

 

            One of Stephen’s large hands crossed the space between them and patted her hand tentatively, as if he was trying to comfort her.

 

            Sarah actually did burst into tears.

 

            “Hey,” Stephen said, a clear let’s-distract-the-crying-woman tone in his voice, “you know what’s interesting? Guess who told Quinn that Lorraine might be in physical danger? Caroline Steel.”

 

            Sarah wiped her eyes. “What?”

 

            “She’s been getting anonymous letters, too – from a stalker. Yesterday’s one promised to get rid of someone for her. She took it to her interview with Quinn. Quinn says he thinks the stalker picked up on Caroline’s dislike for Lorraine and magnified it into a genuine feud, then decided, as proof of how much he cared about Caroline, he’d get rid of Lorraine.”

 

            “Oh,” Sarah said, and slumped back in her seat. “Well. Good.” She shut her eyes and her lips crumpled, and when she spoke again her voice wobbled. “Um, do they, um – know who it is? You said… a technician…”

 

            “Caroline described a technician she met yesterday just after she picked up her note who creeped her out. The description matches the technician who went to fix Lorraine’s computer, and he’s worked in that area a lot lately.”

 

            “Oh.” Sarah shivered, and drew her jacket closer around her.

 

            There was a brief silence.

 

            “Sarah?” Stephen said, a little tentatively. “Are you okay?”

 

            Sarah shut her eyes and thought about Lorraine. “Drive faster.”

 

***

 

            Caroline stood involuntarily when DS Quinn entered the room. “Is she going to be okay?”

 

            He smiled. “We think so. She’ll be in hospital for a couple of days for observation, and she’s feeling pretty crap right now, but the doctors say there probably won’t be any long-term effects.” He waved two sheets of paper. “Copies of your statement for you to sign, and I thought you’d like to know that we’ve taken Michael Thomson into custody. PC Wren says you took us up on the offer of someone keeping an eye out near your place?”

 

            Caroline nodded and signed her name where Quinn pointed. “Can you recommend a locksmith?”

 

            “If it’ll make you feel better.” Quinn scribbled down an address and number and passed it to her.

 

            She tucked the scrap of paper into her pocket. “I can’t remember when my locks were last changed.”

 

            Quinn smiled. For the first time, he looked like he might be kind. Gossip said he was into Jenny Lewis, who did the PR; charitably, Caroline hoped he had a chance with her. “Maybe go away for a couple of days, too. Take a bit of a break.”

 

            “I might.” Caroline ran a hand through her hair and took a deep breath. “Mum’s been wanting me to come and visit, and then there’s some old friends in London I might drop in on. Yeah.”

 

            She looked at Quinn. “If I’d known this would happen… I should have told the police a lot earlier.”

 

            “Maybe.” Quinn stopped leaning against the table Caroline had been sitting at and stood straight. “But I think anyone could understand why you didn’t. You’re a highly independent person who had no idea of the real size of the problem.”

 

            “Yeah, well, I’ll believe that anyone can understand that if I don’t end up having to find a new supervisor.” Caroline wrinkled her nose. “Lorraine and I don’t gel. But there isn’t anyone better at her job.”

 

            “Send flowers,” Quinn suggested.

 

            She chuckled involuntarily. “That won’t come off weird at all. Anyway, I should go.”

 

            “Back to CMU? I’ll give you a lift. I have a hot date with Jenny Lewis and several journos.”

 

***

 

            “Honestly, I’m fine,” Lorraine protested, leaning against the kitchen island and watching Sarah make a fuss. Her stay in hospital over, she was now off work for a week and on preventative mineral supplements, just in case – although the levels of arsenic in her blood were low and still falling.

 

            “You are _not_ ,” Sarah said. “Not yet. You need rest. And recovery. Go to bed!”

 

            “For rest and recovery, right, Sarah?” Dave said, waggling his eyebrows. Becker laughed, but smacked him lightly on the shoulder, and Sarah made a semi-serious swipe at him with a saucepan. Lorraine wasn’t entirely sure how Sarah had been feeding herself while she was in hospital, but whatever method she had settled on, it probably had something to do with the fact that most of their kitchen utensils were piled up on the counters, next to the large floral arrangement that had returned from hospital with them, carried by Becker – who, if his t-shirt and slight smug grin combined with Dave’s unsubtle appreciative glances were anything to go on, was enjoying showing off.

 

            She reached out and tugged on the card attached to the flowers’ vase, and read it again.

 

_Sorry I treated you so badly. Get well soon. –CS_

 

            As well-wishers’ messages went, it certainly had the virtue of being interesting.

 

            Sarah eventually ejected Dave and Becker from their flat on the grounds that they were tiring Lorraine out, and Lorraine allowed herself to be solicitously ushered to bed and helped to put on her most comfortable pyjamas. It was nice to be at home, and it was nice to be looked after.

 

            “Would you like a cup of tea?” Sarah asked.

 

            Lorraine took her hand and rubbed her thumb over the knuckles. “Yes, please. I’ve gone right off coffee.”

 

            Sarah flinched. “Don’t even joke.”

 

            “Sorry.” Lorraine kissed her. “It’s over, you know. I survived, it will be fine, and the police are going to put Thomson away for a very long time.”

 

            “I bloody hope so. If not, I might just have to unleash Niall Richards and Tom Ryan on him. I think they have all sorts of dire plans.”

 

            “I abhor capital punishment…”

 

            “I said dire plans, not dead plans. Dave wouldn’t let them.”

 

            “Is that supposed to make me feel better?”

 

            “Yes. Ordinary tea?”

 

            “Have we got any oolong left?”

 

            Sarah nodded. “Tons.”

 

            Lorraine knew for a fact that there had been none in the cupboards when she was taken ill, and couldn’t help but smile. “I love you.”

 

            “I love you too. Let me go and make you that tea.”

 

            Sarah went out, and Lorraine was left to luxuriate in the relief of finally being home. Hospital had been scary and disorienting; she’d hated it. She might not be back to normal yet, but at least she was back at home, back in her own bed.

 

            Her eyes travelled around their room. Nothing had changed – well, maybe it was a little messier than normal, and a lot of Sarah’s shoes were on the floor. But that was just ordinary Sarah wear and tear.

 

            Thinking of Sarah made her look over at Sarah’s side of the bed, and she caught sight of something on the bedside table. A small, square red leather box, edged in gold. A jewellery box.

 

            Temporarily lost for words, Lorraine stared, and then stifled a laugh, and then beamed, and then thought very quickly. Sarah had probably left it out by accident, and would be cross with herself when she realised. Lorraine should spare her that.

 

            Also, she wanted to see what on earth Sarah’s idea of a proposal looked like.

 

            Lorraine slid down in the bed and turned onto the side facing away from Sarah’s bedside table, and pretended to go to sleep.


End file.
